


The Murder at Makeout Point

by UniverseNil



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Amateur sleuths, Beach House, F/F, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Midvale (Supergirl TV 2015), Minor Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen, Minor Querl Dox/Nia Nal, Mystery, SuperCorp, Vacation, buried treasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-01-27 02:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21384886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseNil/pseuds/UniverseNil
Summary: Everything would have been simpler if only Kara Danvers had woken up in a less competitive mood that morning. Instead, the gang's beach vacation had run headlong into complications in the form of a buried capsule with shocking contents.“Have you considered putting it back where you found it?”“Oh come on, it could be an adventure!”
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 40
Kudos: 207





	1. The Box at the Beach

Everything would have been simpler if only Kara Danvers had woken up in a less competitive mood that morning. Instead, the gang’s beach vacation had run headlong into complications in the form of a buried capsule with shocking contents. 

That morning, they’d been looking forward to another relaxing day. A week prior, J’onn had kicked them out of the DEO for a mandatory two-week summer vacation, citing the grueling recent months. Even Lena Luthor had managed to juggle her schedule around and join them for some time off. Ever the DEO agent, Alex had kept them to a strict itinerary for the first several days, but she had taken a look at the morning surf report and scotched it for once, announcing she was headed down to Surfside Beach. 

Kara and James had opted to join her. Lena had declined citing the risk of sunburn (“Haven’t any of you seen the meme about the Irish girl sunbathing?” she’d asked). Kelly had decided to let Alex focus on her surfing and keep Lena company. The duo had headed out to wander the shops and galleries in Midvale’s small downtown. 

Out on the beach, all the elements of relaxation were in place. The sky was blue and clear, seabirds were frolicking in the surf, and the only sound was birdcall and the irregular rhythm of the crashing waves. The midmorning sun was warm, but not uncomfortably hot. Kara was reclining on her old *NSYNC beach towel, catching some rays in a blue bikini, and James was halfheartedly reading a dogeared paperback in a pair of baggy trunks. 

But while Alex was out catching waves, the two vigilantes had quickly grown bored. 

“I think we’ve lost the habit of relaxing,” Kara declared with disgust. 

“Yeah, I’d like to think we’re just accustomed to lots of physical activity, but it probably means J’onn was right and we all needed to decompress. I thought I’d be glad to have a break from Alex’s vacation deathmarch, but now I need something to do.” He set the novel down on his borrowed Backstreet Boys towel. Kara had hesitantly offered him the obviously superior *NSYNC one, since he was a guest in her hometown, but he’d graciously declined. He was pretty sure Alex had snuck a photo and sent it off to Kelly. 

“We could swim in the surf,” she suggested. 

“No,” he replied firmly. 

“Well that was definitive,” she laughed. “Afraid of sharks?” 

He shook his head. “Junior high jellyfish incident, and that’s all I’m going to say. You want to swim in the great outdoors, take me to a lake.” 

“Ooh, I bet your sister knows the story. I can just get Alex to ask her,” Kara teased. 

He glared. 

“OK, fine, the surf is off limits, but you have to come up with another idea.” 

He pondered for a moment. 

“Hole digging contest!” 

“A what now?” 

“A hole digging contest! We both dig a hole in the sand, bare hands, no superspeed allowed, deepest hole wins.” 

“Holes in the sand can cave in, you know. It sets like concrete. Eliza would always yell at tourists about that.” 

James rolled his eyes. “If it caves in on you, whoop-de-fuckin’-do, Supergirl. And if it caves in on me, I will allow a variance to the ‘no superspeed’ rule when you dig me out.” 

Kara’s eyes narrowed. “Challenge accepted. Loser buys the winner a milkshake later.” 

*** 

The physical activity did help relieve their boredom. Even without superspeed, Kara’s superstrength was still a major advantage, so she stuck to a pace that would keep the competition alive. 

“I think I’m catching up to you, Supergirl,” James taunted. His bald head barely protruded from his pit. 

“Never!” She threw an armload of sand in his direction. 

“Hey! Cheating!” 

“Point out the rule I’m breaking! Alex always could cite chapter and verse.” 

James paused for a moment to catch his breath. “I guess Alex was always Agent Danvers at heart, even when she was a kid, huh?” 

“Ohhh yeah. Next time we stop by Eliza’s, I’ll show you the binders. When I came to live with the Danvers, she started me off with a list of 20 rules. I think it was past 50 by the time Jeremiah found out and had a chat with her.” 

“What was the most ridiculous one?” 

“She made me pay her half my allowance as rent because Eliza and Jeremiah had us sharing a room.” 

He laughed. “OK, yeah, that’s bad.” 

“I think she still owes me the money back, actually! I’m going to have Lena calculate the total with a decade plus of interest…” 

They resumed the digging and light trash talk, until suddenly James yelled, “Ow!” 

“What happened?” 

“I’m fine, but I hit my hand on something hard. Probably just a rock.” He dug some more, then called out excitedly, “Hey, Kara, come over here. I think there’s something buried!” 

She joined him, and the two of them peered at the object. One corner of something man-made was sticking out of the side of James’s pit. Kara lowered her sunglasses to get a better look. 

“It’s lead-lined, so I can’t tell what it is, other than rectangular and about yea big.” She gestured vaguely to indicate something between a shoe box and a small suitcase. “Permission to call the contest a draw?” 

“Please,” he said, gesturing to the box. One burst of superspeed, two minor cave-ins, and they had it extracted. 

Alex had noticed the commotion on shore, and when she caught her next wave, she rode it all the way to the beach. 

“What the fuck is that?” 

“James found it about five feet down.” Alex raised a disapproving eyebrow, “I know, I know, no digging holes at the beach, bad Kara, but we found a _mystery box!_ Lined with lead so I can’t see what’s inside, and we can’t figure out how to open it.” 

“Have you considered putting it back where you found it?” 

“Oh come on, it could be an adventure!” Kara gave Alex her saddest pout, and James mimicked with his best imitation. 

“Fine, you guys. But if it turns out to be full of drugs, you assholes are helping me with the paperwork. And you’re carrying the damn thing, Kara.” 

Kara leaned over to James. “‘Kara has to carry everything’ was subsection _3(e)_ of rule 15.” 

“Hell yeah, it was.” Alex nodded approvingly. 

*** 

They pulled up to the beach house in Alex’s borrowed DEO SUV just as Nia and Brainy arrived. Kara had argued that everyone could squeeze into Eliza’s house, but Lena insisted on sparing the woman two weeks of rambunctious houseguests, and found a vacation rental that could accommodate everyone in a proper bedroom. 

“One of the perks of being a billionaire is having an en suite and not having to sleep on a couch, Kara,” she’d chastised. 

“You slept just fine on my couch recently,” Kara had retorted before she could stop herself. Lena had blushed. 

A recent movie night had taken a turn for the unusual when the best friends had dozed off and woken up tangled together several hours later. Kara’s hand had been under Lena’s shirt, resting on the soft skin of her stomach and mere millimeters below somewhere much less platonic. 

They’d been teetering between hesitant awkwardness and something else ever since. Occasionally a hug or a whiff of Lena’s perfume would make Kara’s mind flash back to that moment, and a thrill would run down her spine. She hadn’t quite figured out what was up with that, and she was choosing not to examine it too closely for the moment. 

Still, a little awkwardness wasn’t going to ruin their trip. 

“This place is amazing,” Nia declared rapturously. Lena really had outdone herself. The house was palatial, and included both a pool and a hot tub. The entire front of the house was a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a gorgeous view of the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean. 

“Lena and Kelly have been informing us of the complexities of Agent Danvers’ vacation itinerary—” Nia elbowed Brainy in the side, hard. Lena and Kelly did their best to look innocent as Alex narrowed her eyes. 

“Nope, nope, no Agent Danvers interrogation mode on vacation.” Kara decided she’d better intervene before Alex dug the red hot irons and thumbscrews out of her DEO go bag. After all, Lena had such elegant thumbs. 

“Hmmph!” 

“How was the drive up, Nia?” Kelly asked, changing the subject. 

“It was a slog getting out of the city, but clear sailing after that. The coast highway is beautiful!” 

The greetings and pleasantries were interrupted when everyone else noticed the box in Kara’s arms. 

“Kara, what on earth is that?” Lena asked. 

“It’s pirate treasure!” she exclaimed. 

Alex pulled back from giving Kelly a kiss on the cheek and rolled her eyes at her sister. “It’s not pirate treasure, you goofball. The two actual concrete things we know about the box are that it’s lined with lead and it has ‘Made in Taiwan’ stamped on it.” 

Kara and James excitedly explained the box’s origins to the rest of the group. 

“So it’s _definitely_ pirate treasure.” Having heard the details, Nia immediately took Kara’s side. 

*** 

Despite the gang being comprised of geniuses, superheroes, and some of the DEO’s most elite operatives, the mystery box was holding firm against the combined force of their brilliance. 

There was a seam around the perimeter, but it was too tightly sealed to wedge anything in and lever the top off. Other than that and the manufacturer’s engraving, the surface was featureless. 

“Kara, can’t you just break the damn thing open?” James was getting frustrated. 

“I mean, of course I _can_, but if we don’t know what’s inside it, I might break it. And there’s definitely _something_ moving around in there. Plus, it kind of ruins the fun, ye scurvy dogs.” 

“I have heard that pirate treasure rapidly diminishes in value if damaged,” Brainy concurred solemnly. Nia had been working with him recently on something called “going with the flow.” 

“Oh! I’m remembering something,” Lena suddenly exclaimed. “My brother made me a lockbox when we were children, after Lillian went through my things and grounded me one too many times. It had this clever locking mechanism where you used a magnet to move a ball bearing through an internal maze in the lid, then lifted the magnet in the right spot to drop the ball bearing and trigger the spring release. He got the idea from a _Popular Mechanics_ article.” 

“Will that work through the lead shielding?” James asked. 

“Lead isn’t ferromagnetic, so that won’t be a problem,” Lena assured them. 

“Worth a try, then!” Alex said. 

*** 

They found a dusty bar magnet in the basement of the vacation rental. A little trial and error yielded the sound of something metallic moving against the lid. 

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Kara cheered. 

“Luthors always sort into Slytherin, Kara,” Lena quipped. Everyone chuckled except James, who recoiled slightly. “Relax, Mr. Olsen, what’s the old saying? ‘If you’re not laughing you're crying,’ right?” 

James made an effort to smile. 

“All right, you all go make lunch and let me solve this without half a dozen people staring at me. Alex, I’m sure you want to rinse the salt off and change out of that wetsuit. Shoo!” She waved them toward the entrance of the house. “Kara, can you bring back paper and a pencil, and some tape?” As usual, Kara was the exception to Lena Luthor’s rules. 

*** 

Kara handed Lena the requested supplies, then watched as she carefully taped the paper to the lid of the box. 

“So half a dozen people staring at you while you work is bad, but one is OK?” 

“Depends who’s doing the staring,” Lena said with a wink. 

Kara tried with all her might not to blush. Lena had been catching her by surprise like that more and more often since that night on the couch. 

She settled down to quietly observe. Once the paper was securely affixed, Lena moved the magnet around and, based on where the ball bearing came to a stop, began to trace a diagram of the maze with the pencil. 

“So far, this one’s much simpler than Lex’s. His had multiple levels and bypasses and secondary springs that were halfway impossible to chart. I guess this person was just trying to keep out normal people instead of a criminal mastermind hellbent on tormenting a pre-teen.” 

Kara winced a little whenever Lena talked about her childhood. 

“Once you figure out the maze, how do you know the right spot to drop the ball bearing?” 

“Good question. I suppose we’ll start with the most difficult spot to reach, and go from there.” 

As it turned out, the trigger was in the eighth most difficult spot. 

*** 

Lena insisted that everyone had to eat lunch before they actually opened the lid. If the delay had been for any other reason, Kara would have mutinied. Even so, Alex finally made her switch seats at the table, when she wouldn’t stop gazing longingly at the mystery box through the kitchen wall. 

“Look at it this way,” Nia remarked, “we’re extending the suspense. If we open it before lunch and it’s just someone’s stamp collection, we’ll all be disappointed and it’ll ruin our appetites.” 

“Not Kara’s appetite!” James dodged the crumpled napkin Kara threw in his direction. 

“Or if it’s drugs, we’d spend lunch dreading the paperwork,” Alex mumbled around a bite of sandwich. 

“I’m betting it’s porn,” James proposed. Conversation stopped dead and everyone stared at him. “What? Don’t look at me like I’m a weirdo. People leave porn in the woods and stuff. It’s a thing.” No one was convinced. “I swear, google it. It’s seriously a thing!” 

Kelly obliged and tapped on her phone for several seconds. “Okay, my brother the weirdo is correct, and it is, in fact, a thing.” 

“Even so, that’s a lot of effort to get rid of some porn,” Alex disagreed. “That pit must have been five feet deep.” She pointed at Kara “And don’t think mom won’t be giving you both a lecture about the digging when she finds out.” 

“Maybe it’s really _weird_ porn,” Lena hazarded. Everyone stopped eating and stared at Lena this time. She shrugged. “What, maybe it is?” 

This turn in the conversation had put an unhappy look on Kara’s face. “OK, someone else has to look first, because if it’s weird porn, I sure don’t want to see it.” 

“Maybe it’s weird porn and also drugs, and it’ll go to trial and you’ll get called as a witness and they’ll ask you to confirm that exhibits A through N were, in fact, found in the lockbox, and the judge will make you look at it,” Alex teased. 

Kara frowned. Lena stifled a smile. 

“If you can’t affirmatively recognize each horrible item, the judge will let the cartel leader go and it’ll be your fault when he murders a bunch of people.” 

“_Alexxxx!!!_” 

Kelly elbowed Alex gently. “Be nice to your sister.” 

“Yeah, be nice to your sister, Alex, or James and I won’t share our pirate treasure with you!” Kara stuck out her tongue. 

*** 

"I have to say,” Kelly laughed, “my life had far fewer Indiana Jones moments before I started hanging out with you guys.” Alex was standing behind her girlfriend, curled around her back to ward off the cool ocean breeze, and was resting her chin on Kelly’s shoulder. 

“So who’s going to open it?” Nia asked. 

“James found it, so he should do the honors,” Kara offered. 

James knelt next to the box and started prying at the lid. “It’s still on there pretty tight. I wonder how long it was buried down there?” Eventually, there was enough of a gap that he could get his fingernails in. Could somebody grab—” Given the slightest excuse Kara leapt in to assist. “Yeah, pull the rest of the box down while I keep pulling up on the lid.” 

Finally the lid came free. Everyone leaned closer to see what was inside. 

“It appears that each of our hypotheses was wrong,” Brainy announced. “It is neither pirate treasure, nor drugs, nor pornography of any gradation of weirdness.” 

The box contained an envelope and an item wrapped securely in soft felt. 

“Seems to have been properly watertight at least. Item first, or envelope first?” James asked. 

After a round of light squabbling failed to resolve the question, a coin was flipped. 

“Item it is!” James picked it up gently and untied the string holding the packet closed. The object rolled out into his hand. “It’s a lens! It doesn’t look like a camera lens though.” He peered at it curiously. 

“May I see it?” Lena asked. He obligingly handed it over. “This is a telescope lens.” She peered at the manufacturer information along the side and her eyebrows went up. “An expensive one!” 

“How expensive?” Kara demanded. 

“If I had to guess, I’d say tens of thousands of dollars, but not hundreds of thousands of dollars?” 

“Ha! No porn, no drugs, and I believe that a value exceeding ten thousand dollars qualifies in anyone’s book as treasure!” 

“OK, OK, you were right, Kara,” Alex conceded easily. “What’s in the envelope though? It could still be drugs, porn, and a notarized affidavit that the lens has a critical defect and is therefore worthless.” Kelly elbowed her. 

James picked up the envelope. “Nothing written on the outside…” He carefully opened it up. It contained a single typed sheet. As he read it, his face turned serious. 

“James, what is it?” Kelly asked. 

James handed the letter to Lena, who read the note aloud. “If you are reading this, I was murdered. Signed, Mrs. Tabitha Brandrick. It’s dated May 2007.” 

**** 


	2. The Message at the Museum

“Alex, Kara, did you know anyone named Brandrick when you lived here?” Kelly asked. 

Alex looked up from inspecting the note. “Only half the town… We went to school with tons of them, but not a Tabitha. And unless she kept her name when she got married, she might not have been a Brandrick yet when we knew her, _if_ we knew her. Or maybe she was someone’s mom or grandmother? Or, hell, someone’s aunt who kept to herself and had a thousand cats.” 

“We should check with Eliza tonight,” Kara suggested. “She might remember someone from school events, and she would have known more of the adults in town than we did.” 

“We should call the police,” Alex replied firmly. 

“_Allllexx_,” Kara whined, “where’s your sense of adventure?” 

“Back at the DEO where it belongs. This is my vacation, Kara. _Vacation_. As in, my sense of adventure has vacated the premises.” 

Alex fixed her sister with the Agent Danvers Glare. 

Kara pulled out the big guns: the trademark pout. 

The rest of the gang waited breathlessly to see how the standoff would resolve. 

“Ugh! Fine, Scooby-Doo. If the note is from 2007, it’s clearly not an emergency. But we’re sticking to the vacation itinerary this afternoon. And _you_ get to explain to the cops why we didn’t call them right away!” 

Kara nodded solemnly “I accept your terms.” 

“Alright, everyone!” Nia clapped her hands to get their attention. “Onwards to our scheduled fun!” 

*** 

That evening, Eliza came over to the vacation rental for dinner. James was barbecuing, Nia and Brainy were attempting to play badminton out on the lawn, and the rest of the group was relaxing on the home’s spacious deck. 

The pall cast by Tabitha Brandrick’s alarming note had worn off over the course of the afternoon. The gang had caught a showing of _Treasure of the Sierra Madre _ at Midvale’s revival house. Kara had initially taken the title as an omen, but wasn’t sure what to make of the film in the end. “Let us hope that our own pursuit of treasure follows a less physically and psychologically harrowing course,” Brainy intoned, to wide agreement. After the movie, Alex and Kara led the rest of them on a tour of their old haunts in the area, and then the gang had made a grocery run. 

Kara sat up and turned toward James. “How’s it looking, grillmaster? Some of us are starving here!” 

“Perfection takes time,” he called back. “_Some of us_ have take things like salmonella into account. Plus, we all saw you finish off that entire family sized bag of chips half an hour ago.” 

Eliza laughed at the exchange. “Kara, dear, if you need a snack, there just might be a chocolate pecan pie hiding in the kitchen.” 

Kara leapt up and scampered off delightedly to demolish it. 

“Kara tells me your chocolate pecan pie is the best dessert in the galaxy, Dr. Danvers,” Lena remarked. “I admit I’ve been curious about it, but I don’t expect there to be any extra if Kara’s been left unsupervised with it for more than ten seconds.” 

“Call me Eliza, please. She’d certainly know if anyone would.” She lowered her voice slightly. “And there’s an apple pie for the rest of you locked in the trunk of my car to keep my daughter’s gluttonous hands off of it.” 

Alex lit up. “Thanks, mom!” 

*** 

James set the platters of burgers, chicken, and grilled vegetarian items out on table and the group dug in. 

“So, mom,” Alex broached the topic now that the entire group was assembled, “Kara and James found something on the beach earlier. Also Kara’s going to be grounded for life.” 

_“Kara Zor-El Danvers!_” 

Kara’s eyes went wide with fear at Eliza’s outburst. 

“Yes, you _should_ be scared, young lady! Were you digging holes on the beach?” 

Kara looked around desperately for someone to throw under the bus. 

“It was James’s idea!” 

James stopped chewing for a moment and glared at Kara. “Traitor,” he muttered. 

“And James did not grow up on the beach knowing precisely how dangerous it is! I expect you to set a better example. You know full well that when sand caves in, it—” 

“—sets like concrete,” the three Danvers women chorused. 

Eliza narrowed her eyes and huffed disapprovingly. “You’re just lucky you got your hands on that pie before I found out about this, young lady.” 

Alex looked mildly triumphant. 

Eliza took a breath to calm herself down. “Anyhow, what’s this about a discovery?” 

“Pirate treasure!” Kara blurted out excitedly, all talk of groundings and pie restrictions quickly forgotten. 

“To be precise,” Brainy clarified, “a buried container, lined with lead and secured with a clever locking mechanism, has yielded both an item of substantial intrinsic value and a message suggesting a captivating mystery.” 

Alex explained about the telescope lens as she handed Eliza the envelope containing the note. Eliza grew alarmed as she read it. 

“Oh my, this seems serious! Have you considered handing all of this over to the police?” 

Desperate to avoid exactly that, Kara hastened to calm her foster mother. “Alex said she was going to investigate.” 

From behind Eliza, Alex was staring wide-eyed at her sister and silently mouthing “What is wrong with you?” 

“Really, Alex? What in heaven’s name would make this DEO business? Is there something alien about the capsule?” 

“Yes,” Alex replied, narrowing her eyes at a guilty-looking Kara. “An _extremely annoying alien_ dug the damn thing up while other people were trying to enjoy a well-earned vacation.” 

Kara’s expression morphed to a martyred “Who, me?” and she looked to the rest of the gang for support. They studiously focused on their dinners, hoping to stay out of the family spat. 

Eliza sighed. “Well, I suppose you’re both adults.” 

Having survived the first hurdle, Kara soldiered on. 

“So, I know the town is teeming with Brandricks, but did you ever know a Tabitha? Alex and I couldn’t remember any, but we thought maybe it was somebody older, like one of the other parents when we were in school?” 

Eliza thought back to her PTA days. “No, I can’t say I did,” she finally announced. “Sorry, girls, the name just isn’t ringing a bell. I can’t even think of any Tabithas in town.” She handed the note back to Kara. 

Brow furrowed, Kara glared at the inscrutable clue. 

*** 

Later that evening, most of the group chose to turn in, but Kara wanted to get a head start on research. She was set up on the sofa in the small study downstairs, perusing LexisNexis. Lena was curled up next to her, sipping a mug of chamomile tea. She was dressed in pajamas and a soft oversized sweater, and had swapped her contacts for a pair of thick-framed glasses. 

“Any luck, Ace Reporter?” 

“Ugh, I haven’t been finding much,” Kara admitted. “The Midvale Observer hasn’t fully digitized its archives. And that’s a nice way of saying they actually didn’t even have a _website_ until 2013.” 

Lena casually slung an arm around Kara’s shoulders and leaned into her personal space to get a better look at the screen. When Lena stayed snuggled close, Kara’s heart began to thunder in her chest. 

“Hey, I almost forgot! I saved you something!” Kara blurted out nervously. She leaned toward the coffee table and picked up a plate covered in foil and handed it to Lena, along with a fork. 

Lena looked at her friend curiously, then carefully removed the foil. On the plate was a generous slice of chocolate pecan pie. “Kara…” she trailed off breathlessly. 

“I know I rave about it all the time, and you’ve said you wanted to try it, so…” 

Lena’s eyes had gone a little glassy. She looked back up at Kara, and then slowly leaned in to kiss her cheek. Kara went beet red. 

“Kara Danvers, I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me in my entire life,” she murmured, lips brushing against the shell of her friend’s ear. 

Kara shrugged helplessly, not sure how to respond to any of that. 

“Here,” Lena moved Kara’s laptop out of the way, and set the plate on both their laps. “If you don’t mind sharing a fork, we could split it?” 

They traded bites of the best dessert in the galaxy until the plate was empty. 

*** 

The next morning, the gang went to Midvale’s small city hall to see what they could find out about Tabitha Brandrick. 

Kara strode to the front desk, her sunniest smile plastered on her face. “Hi, we were hoping to get access to your research facilities. My sister and I grew up here and wanted to find out what happened to some old friends. We tried to find the Midvale Observer archives online last night, but they weren’t available.” The gang had settled on that particular lie after much debate; Alex made her best effort to look friendly. 

The man at the desk looked up, then beamed in recognition. “My word! Kara Danvers, is that you?” 

“Mr. Delacruz?! Oh my gosh! Do you still run the ice cream shop?” She turned to her friends. “Mr. Delacruz’s ice cream shop was the best in Midvale! Fifty different kinds of sprinkles!” 

“No, no, I retired five years ago; my son runs it now. I volunteer here part-time to stay busy.” He noticed the rest of the gang. “Are you Kara’s friends? She practically kept my shop in business when she came to Midvale!” 

Kara blushed, as though she had just received the greatest compliment in the world. 

“Oh, you’re Kara’s sister, aren’t you? Alice, was it?” 

“Alex,” she corrected, mortified. James and Kelly were visibly restraining laughter. 

“Right. Well, Kara, Alice, I’m not really supposed to let just anybody into the records room…” He paused and looked around to make sure no one could overhear. “Oh, I know you kids won’t cause trouble. You want room 312, and let me jot down the keycode…” He looked up the code on his laminated reference sheet, then carefully copied it to a post-it note. 

“All right, Kara, there you go! They’ve got newspaper archives, vital records, and all kinds of things up there for you. It was wonderful seeing you again. You too, Alice. Stay out of trouble, girls!” 

“We will, Mr. Delacruz! I promise I’ll take these guys by the shop sometime this week!” Kara assured him cheerfully. 

The gang chorused their thanks, in Alex’s case through gritted teeth, then headed up to the third floor. 

*** 

“I didn’t know anyone still _had_ a microfiche machine,” Lena remarked, as she stared dubiously at the device. 

Alex was flipping through a bound reference index, looking for ‘Brandrick’. There was one for each year the newspaper had been published, covering 75 years of history. The lack of a computerized catalog meant there was no way to search by first name. 

“Hey, Alice, how about passing those indexes around so we can all help?” 

“Fuck you, Jimmy.” 

Kelly was inspecting a bulletin board over by the door, drawn in first by a familiar smell, and then a distinctive purple ink. “Oh wow, I didn’t know anyone still had a _mimeograph!_ And this memo is from _last week!_ Alice, what year is it in Midvale again?” 

“Don’t start, Kelly,” Alex muttered darkly. 

The Olsen siblings snickered. 

Kara and Nia’s research skills soon yielded a steady supply of references across the years. As it turned out, there were a _lot_ of Brandricks, and a deluge of articles. Not a single one was named Tabitha, however. 

Lena looked up each corresponding piece of film (“This is so retro!”) to locate the article, then delightedly fed a dime into the machine to print off each page for the other four to analyze. (“Is that the smallest financial transaction you’ve ever made?” Alex had teased her. Lena seemed confused and replied “Yes..?”) They’d had to make two runs to a nearby bank for fresh rolls of dimes. 

“In a town this small, I can’t believe you guys didn’t know these folks well enough to just call up and ask them if they had a a cousin Tabitha,” James teased. “I mean, I’d expect that from grumpy ol’ Alice, but I’m surprised Kara Danvers the Humanoid Labrador Retriever didn’t know all of them by name, age, and favorite color!” 

Alex growled. 

It was a game of finding breadcrumbs and trying to reassemble them into a loaf. Brandricks had served in various town elected positions off and on for decades. The old spring factory outside of city limits had been briefly owned by a Brandrick in the last few months before it shut down. A Jimmy “Brendrick” had even made the news for a statewide little league baseball championship loss in 1987 — the name was spelled correctly in the photo caption. 

They made particularly sure to check any wedding announcements, but the name Tabitha didn’t appear anywhere. 

Only one of the Brandricks suggested anything worthy of followup. A Todd Brandrick had received a writeup in the Midvale Observer twice. The first was in 1974 when he hung out his shingle in a private psychology practice following the closure of the county psychiatric hospital. The article noted that he was an avid beachcomber in his spare time. The second was a profile from 2007, after Todd and his wife Lorraine had made a substantial donation to help break ground at the Midvale Museum Pavilion. It included a curious line: “Mr. Brandrick is a familiar figure to Midvale’s beachgoers. He tells us he never misses an opportunity to comb the shores for treasure, sometimes with a metal detector and sometimes without. As he and Lorraine left the interview, he turned around one last time and told this reporter, ‘You might give it a try! You never know what treasures you might find out on Midvale’s Surfside Beach!’” 

“Well that’s a suspicious place and year,” Lena commented when she printed it out and handed it over. 

Alex’s eyes lit up with the glow of victory. “Guys, you know what this means?!” 

No one did. 

She pulled a tattered printout from her back pocket, slapped on the table, and pointed to an item halfway down the page. “We’re back on the itinerary! Booyah! Museum time!” 

Kara groaned. 

*** 

After stopping for lunch, the gang climbed into the SUV and headed off to the Midvale Museum Pavilion. The Danvers girls had heard from Eliza about the museum complex for years, but their trips to Midvale were normally too short to accommodate a visit. 

Alex had laid down the law: they were going to tour the museum complex _properly_, not just go on a mad dash for clues. Kara chafed at the cruel stifling of her amateur detective efforts, but decided to bide her time and play nice for the moment. Lena quietly smoothed things over by offering to buy Kara a snack or three at the museum café. 

The complex was sprawling, with separate buildings for its art, science, natural history, and local history collections. The gang decided to split up and meet back at the café in three hours. Alex was the only one interested in Midvale history, but Kelly was interested in Alex, so she tagged along. Lena wanted to check out the science wing, and Kara dutifully accompanied her. James headed off to a photography exhibit, and Nia and Brainy decided to peruse the natural history offerings. 

Kara’s last remark as the group broke up was a reminder that, itinerary or not, their amateur sleuthing was not to be forgotten. “We’re all going to see a lot of things, and any one of them could be the critical clue.” 

*** 

She wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately, when they met up later, one thing no one had seen was anything that would help propel them towards a solution. 

“Face it, Kar, maybe we were just never meant to solve The Mystery of the Pirate’s Very Expensive Telescope Lens,” Alex joked. 

Kara glared. 

As they headed dejectedly out to the parking lot, Lena suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed Kara’s hand excitedly. “Kara! Look!” 

She was pointing at the wall: set into the stucco were decorative tiles commemorating donors who had funded the construction of the complex. Kara followed her friend’s gaze to a point about eight feet up, then gasped. There, among the hundreds of tiles was one reading “Mrs. Tabitha Brandrick.” 

She lowered her glasses and grew even more excited. “Guys, there’s something behind the tile! Another container, but smaller!” 

*** 

“We are _absolutely not_ vandalizing a motherfucking museum!” Alex’s muffled shout could be heard in the main room of the vacation rental. 

“Well what’s your plan?” came Kara’s response. “Hand it over to the police and tell them we have _a feeling_ the tile has something to do with it? ‘Oh, my friend Supergirl flew in by total coincidence and happened to look at the tile! Nothing Supergirl likes to do more than visit beach-town museums! What’re the odds she’d pick ours?’” Bringing the threat of exposure into the argument was a low blow, but little sisters weren’t required to fight fair. 

Most of the group was enjoying delivery pizza while the Danvers sisters duked it out in the study. 

“Who do you think will win?” Nia asked. 

“I suspect Agent Danvers will prevail in this dispute,” Brainy offered. “The perils of being caught and facing repercussions at the DEO will impel her to stand firm at this juncture. As an additional bonus, abandoning this project will allow her to enforce the itinerary with an iron fist for the remainder of our time here.” 

“Noooo, Kara will _definitely_ win,” Kelly disagreed with a laugh. The group was surprised at her confidence. “Alex wants to chase this down as badly as Kara does. She’s just in big-sister mode right now. It’s her obligation to be the voice of reason for ten minutes before she gives in.” 

“OK, yeah, I can see it,” James conceded, having plenty of experience of his own with older sisters. 

*** 

“I can’t _believe_ we’re vandalizing a museum,” Alex grumbled, as they crept toward the museum grounds two hours after sunset. “Years of DEO training, and here I am skulking around like the fucking Hardy Boys. Luthor, you’re paying for all our lawyers if this goes south.” 

“Won’t be a problem,” Lena replied. 

In the interest of stealth (and Alex’s preference to _not_ use a borrowed DEO SUV in the commission of a crime), only half of the group had come along on what Kara insisted on referring to as “Operation Totally Awesome Heist” and Alex as “Operation Career-Ending Move.” 

Nia, Brainy and Kelly were stationed as lookouts at a nearby wine bar with a good view of both of the complex’s entrances. To avoid any unnecessary electronic communication during the operation, they were to wait and observe, leaving only when they had verbal confirmation that things had gone successfully. Or visual confirmation that they had not, though no one wanted to dwell on that possibility. Kelly had sent Alex off with a kiss and a promise to bail her out if necessary. Lena had made a joke about conjugal visits, mildly traumatizing both their siblings. 

They had parked a block and a half away, and were now approaching the museum complex on foot. Without the sunshine and cheerful crowds, the sprawling grounds felt ominous. 

“Remember, we haven’t done much recon, so we don’t know what kind of security they have outside the buildings. We’re going in blind here.” 

“Alex, stopped worrying, I checked all the buildings, and there’s no one here. The place is deserted,” Kara assured her. 

They crept along the breezeway looking for the tile. Alex had nixed flashlights (“Way too suspicious, guys. It’s visible from the street! Do you _want_ someone to call the cops?”), so they were relying on Kara’s X-ray vision to locate Tabitha Brandrick’s tile among the hundreds of legitimate donor names. 

“Found it, guys!” 

“I guess I can boost someone up there? Lena, you’re the smallest…” James offered. Kara cleared her throat meaningfully and glared at him. “Oh, right! Sorry.” 

She took a quick glance around to double check that there were no witnesses, then floated up until the tile was at eye level. She pried at one edge and it popped loose easily. 

“Hey, it’s not even really grouted in like the others…. It sort of slides up once you push it past the little retaining clip...” She waved the tile at her sister once she had it removed. “Good news, Alex, you can stop worrying about that vandalism charge!” 

“We’re still trespassing, so hurry up, you hooligan,” Alex hissed back. “If you keep goofing off, you’re going to drop that fucking tile.” 

Kara carefully removed the small box affixed to the back of the tile, then reattached it to the wall. As she landed, James and Lena clustered around to get a good look at their prize. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Alex shooed them away. “This is amateur hour enough without us sticking around any longer than we have to! We’ll look at it back at the house.” 

As though hardwired to Alex’s nerves, the museum’s alarms chose that moment to go off. Security lights started clicking on around the perimeters of the buildings, though theirs remained dark for the moment. 

“Shit! OK, get a move on, everyone!” 

They fled back to Nia and Brainy’s rental car. 

James went to start the engine, but Alex reached over and stopped him. “Wait.” 

Thirty seconds later, several police vehicles sped past and pulled into the museum driveway. 

Once they were out of sight, Alex indicated that James could start the car. “Don’t turn the lights on until we get a couple blocks from here.” 

James hung a U-turn and slowly drove away. As they finally reached the turnoff to a major road, he flicked the headlights on. Alex quickly called Kelly to tell her that they were safe, knowing that she would have seen the police cars roll up. 

Kara was vibrating with excitement over the successful heist. “Lena, oh my god, that was awesome! Here, you found the tile. You should be in charge of the box.” She handed it over; their fingers brushed. 

“Thanks, Kara. You know, I’m still not used to seeing you take off like that.” She looked down at the box cradled in her hand, not quite able to make eye contact with her friend. 

“Kind of freaky?” She hoped not, but… 

Lena looked up at Kara through her eyelashes. “No, not like that. More… _fascinating_.” 

“Oh no, you’re not going mad scientist on me, are you?” Kara waggled her eyebrows at Lena to make it clear she was joking. She was so relieved Lena wasn’t freaked out that she would have cheerfully hopped into any L-Corp scanner her friend pointed to. 

Lena just bit her lip, maintaining intense eye contact until Kara flushed and looked away. 

*** 

Safely regrouped back at the vacation house, they were finally able to open the box. This time there was no complex mechanism, just a simple latch. 

“I think Lena gets to do the honors this time,” James suggested. “She was the one with the sharp eyes.” 

Lena slid the box closer on the table, unhooked the lid, and opened the container. “It’s a pet collar. Oh, look, there’s something scratched into the back of the rabies tag!” 

She pulled the tag off the split ring and passed it around to the group. They all peered curiously at it, but no one was sure what the string of letters and numbers could possibly mean. 

Nia hazarded a guess. “Maybe it’s a password to something?” 

“Ol’ Tabitha wins the prize for password security in that case!” Kelly joked. 

“I believe I have acquired additional information that may irrevocably alter the course of this endeavor,” Brainy announced, holding the collar up. He detached another tag that had been flipped backward on the split ring. 

James leaned closer, then laughed. “Hey, Kara, looks like your murder victim was a cat!” 

“Whaaaat!?” She swiped it from Brainy’s hand and read it aloud to the group, “Mrs. Tabby Brandrick, 63 Rosecrest Lane, 555-2947, special diet, do not feed.” She looked up at everyone, stunned. Lena patted her on the back consolingly. 

“Well,” Alex said, “on the upside, we haven’t been obstructing justice in a murder case this whole time after all!” 

**** 


	3. The Quixotic Quest

With an address and phone number, they were looking forward to making more progress the next morning. Kara had wanted to head out at sunrise, but Alex had persuaded her to wait for a more civilized hour. 

Alex’s motives weren’t entirely altruistic; she and Kelly were off to the beach so that Kelly could try her hand at surfing, and she didn’t want to spend the whole time worrying about her sister’s antics. The two of them were already in their wetsuits. “Don’t worry, James, I’ll watch out for jellyfish,” Kelly teased as Alex grabbed her hand and hauled her out the door. 

Kara narrowed her eyes at James. “I _will_ find out what that’s all about, you know,” she threatened. 

“Eat your waffles, Kara,” Lena chided groggily. “Tell you what: if you drop it until everyone’s coffee has kicked in, I’ll buy you half a dozen of those cinnamon rolls you were raving about when we walk up there.” Kara dug back into her breakfast with enthusiasm; she wasn’t going to turn down that kind of offer. 

*** 

At the much more dignified hour of 10AM, Kara and Lena arrived at the small house at 63 Rosecrest Lane. It was a well-kept craftsman home with a small garden in front. A man was on a stepladder applying fresh paint to the front window frame. 

“Mr. Brandrick?” Kara inquired. 

He looked over at the women and narrowed his eyes. “What’s it to you? Are you the fuckin’ Jehovah’s Witnesses again? I thought I threw you out of here a week ago…” 

Lena raised an eyebrow. She was pretty sure Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t go door to door in the latest carefully curated designer trends for summer relaxation. 

“Uh, no, we’re not them at all,” Kara answered, taking a step closer. “We actually found your cat’s collar, and we were wondering if you needed it back…” 

The man laughed and took a step down to the ground. “Tabby’s been dead since 2003. I’m pretty sure she don’t need it anymore, girls.” 

Kara and Lena exchanged a look. So the cat had passed years before the date in the note. Curiouser and curiouser. 

“Mr. Brandrick,” Lena asked, “was the tabby cat yours, or someone else’s in the family?” 

The man laughed again. “She weren’t a tabby cat. She was a calico. My dad’s idea of a joke. He’s the only one who liked that damn cat.” His expression grew humorless. “I’m not sure why you two’re here asking questions about a dead cat. It’s dead, and I don’t need the collar, but I do need to get back to the painting before I lose my wet edge.” 

Accustomed to boardroom hostility, Lena was unphased. “Was your father a telescope hobbyist, by any chance?” 

“What? No, none of us were ‘telescope hobbyists’ or astronauts or ballerinas or whatever fool think you’re going to ask next.” He climbed back up the stepladder. “Now get on out of here and let me get back to painting before it’s a hundred damn degrees out.” 

Kara shrugged helplessly, and the two women turned and headed back towards downtown. 

*** 

“Looks like my sister’s running late, as usual,” Alex groused. 

She and Kelly were waiting outside a café where Kara and Lena were supposed to meet them for lunch. The surf had been a little too rough for lessons, and Alex was grouchy. The vacation itinerary had already been heading out the window, what with her sister’s nose for trouble, and this morning felt like the nail in the coffin. 

“Or possibly Agent Danvers is running ten minutes early, as usual,” Kelly teased. She reached around Alex and squeezed her until the agent couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

“Yes, fine, we’re early, but I still bet they’ll be late. Those two always lose track of time.” 

“On that topic, what exactly is up with those two?” Kelly broached cautiously. “This is the most uninterrupted time I’ve spent around them…” She trailed off and waited to see how Alex would respond. 

“Oh, I know, right?” Alex rolled her eyes. “Kara claims they’re just friends, but I sure don’t have any ‘just friends’ who I hold hands with that much.” She grabbed Kelly’s hand to illustrate the point. “I asked about it once, but Kara stammered at me, then finally insisted that not everyone is a standoffish robot like Alex Danvers. To be honest, I usually stay away from the topic because she gets so flustered.” 

“It’s not just me, then?” Kelly laughed. 

“Definitely not.” Alex’s voice took a conspiratorial tone and she leaned closer. “You know how Kara usually hoovers up food before anyone gets a chance at it, if no one stops her?” Kelly nodded. “Well she just about took my head off last night for coming within ten feet of a slice of pie she had _intentionally set aside_ for Lena.” 

Kelly’s jaw dropped. 

“Yeah. And that was her _favorite_ pie. The one she won’t shut up about. And it was a good-sized slice! I haven’t gotten more than a piddly sliver since her pod touched down. So, yeeeah, those two are a will-they-or-won’t-they for the ages— Oh shit, they just came around the corner.” 

“Damn, and two minutes early. I should have taken that bet when you offered it.” 

*** 

“I can’t believe that guy was such a jerk!” 

Kara was still stewing about the encounter earlier that morning. She had plowed through four rounds of “bread for the table,” most of two appetizers, three entire entrées, the half of Lena’s entrée that she couldn’t finish, and as many of Alex’s fries as she could get away with. She was currently waiting on dessert and trying to decide if she knew Kelly quite well enough to shamelessly descend upon her fries too. The server was regarding her with something like awe. Kelly noticed Kara’s hopeful expression and silently slid her plate over. 

Suddenly, all the color drained from Alex’s face. 

Finding her hand in a death grip, Kelly looked over at her girlfriend with concern. “Honey, is something wrong?” 

Kara looked around the restaurant to see what might have caused such a reaction, and quickly identified the cause. 

“Oh shoot… That’s Vicky Donahue, isn’t it?” 

Kelly recognized the name immediately, but Lena looked at Kara questioningly. 

Kara whispered a quick explanation in Lena’s ear so as to not throw her sister off even more than she was already. “Alex’s high school best friend slash major crush that she didn’t even realize was a crush until a couple years ago. They had a big falling out senior year. She’s kind of a b-word.” 

Lena nodded in understanding. 

Unfortunately, Vicky had recognized Alex as well, and was making a beeline for their table. 

“Alex Danvers! It’s been a minute, yeah?” 

Alex didn’t seem capable of speech yet, so Kara intervened. “Hey Vicky. How’re things?” 

“Oh, is that you Kara?” 

Vicky didn’t seem particularly interested in catching up with her former friend’s little sister, so Lena stepped in. “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Lena Luthor.” She held out a hand in a friendly handshake. Vicky froze at the name, her attention fully off Alex now. Lena enjoyed the moments when she could harness Luthor name for good. Kara squeezed her knee in silent gratitude. 

Eventually Vicky came to her senses enough to nervously shake the proffered hand. “Uh, nice to meet you.” 

The brief distraction had been enough for Alex to find her footing. “Yeah, it’s been a while, Vicky. What have you been up to?” 

“Oh, this and that. You know how Midvale is,” she replied absently. Her gaze had fallen on Alex and Kelly’s joined hands. 

Alex summoned her courage and made introductions. “Kelly, this is my friend Vicky, from high school. Vicky, this is my girlfriend, Kelly.” 

Vicky’s eyebrows hiked up at the word “girlfriend.” 

“Ah, nice to meet you. Guess the rumors are true then.” 

An awkward silence settled over the table. Thankfully, the server chose that moment to interrupt with dessert. Vicky made her excuses and scuttled back to rejoin her friends at the hostess stand. Alex did her best to ignore the whispers and stares. 

“Um, I’m not sure we ordered _all_ of this?” Kara asked hopefully. She would never complain about extra dessert, but she didn’t want to steal someone else’s. The town was small enough that Eliza would hear about it eventually if she did. 

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s on the house. I grabbed the first plates I saw on the dessert tray. You folks looked like you needed rescuing,” he whispered conspiratorially. 

“Thank you,” Alex offered in a heartfelt voice. 

“No thanks necessary. She and her friends come here twice a week, take up a table for two hours, and tip 5% if we’re lucky. Plus”, he added with a wink, “family’s gotta stick together, right?” 

Realization dawned as Alex noticed the small rainbow pin on his shirt. 

“Well even, so, thank you for the save. And my gluttonous sister would thank you for the dessert if she weren’t already in a sugar haze over there.” 

*** 

James, Nia, and Brainy had stayed behind at the vacation rental that morning to relax. After lunch, however, the detective bug bit hard. 

“Hey guys,” Nia asked, “what do you think about talking to the vet? Their name is on the rabies tag. Maybe they can tell us something?” 

James looked thoughtful. “That’s a good idea! Can you find the address?” 

A few moments tapping on her phone, and Nia had it. “Looks like the office is still around!” 

“We three sleuths cannot help but conquer this mystery!” Brainy proclaimed with a raised fist. “Victory awaits!” 

Nia rolled her eyes and grabbed her car keys. 

They pulled up to the Midvale Animal Clinic twenty minutes later. Inside, a red-headed teenager was working at the front desk. She gave them an odd look — the clinic probably didn’t see three strangers with zero animals between them very often. 

Nia affixed her winningest expression and approached. “Hi, I’m Nia, we were hoping you could help us out. We found a collar for one of your patients and we thought the owners might want the tags back.” 

“Oh, that’s so thoughtful!” 

“The cat’s name is Tabitha Brandrick.” 

The receptionist’s brow creased. “Hmm, I’m not familiar with that name, and I know almost all of our patients…” She turned to her workstation and began typing rapidly. “Well that’s strange.” 

She looked back up at them, and spoke in a quieter voice so as not to be overheard by the other patients in the waiting room. “I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but that patient passed away several years ago.” 

“Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that!” Nia sympathized as James nodded solemnly. Brainy’s expression remained fixed in the friendly grin he had been told was important in customer service interactions. “Do you remember anything about the owners? We’d like to return the collar if possible. It must be very sentimental in that case…” 

The receptionist glanced at Brainy and bristled. “We don’t really give out people’s information… If you leave the collar with us, we would be happy to contact them and return it.” 

“It’s just that we forgot the collar back at our vacation house…” 

Nia’s charm and James’s friendly smile might still have gotten them somewhere if Brainy hadn’t interjected. 

“Madam, this crucial sliver of information could propel our endeavor to heroic success, or halt our progress and doom it to pitiable failure,” he proclaimed. “Surely an exception could be granted in order to assist in this matter!” 

Nia winced. 

“Sir, we _really_ can’t give out patient information.” She stated firmly. And _loudly_. 

The commotion brought an older man out of the office, to the receptionist’s visible relief. He was clad in a lab coat, scrubs, and wire-rimmed glasses. His graying hair was unkempt, and his clothes were hopelessly covered in animal fur. 

“How can I help you folks?” he asked. “I’m Dr. Walters, the veterinary director here.” 

“We were just hoping to return a collar we found. We left it back at the house and were hoping we could get some information to return it.” 

“Well, ma’am, we don’t really do that sort of thing. I’m sure you can understand why.” 

“It’s just…” 

The veterinarian shook his head and crossed his arms. “Sirs, ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he stated with finality. 

They left. 

As they neared the house, James finally broached the awkward silence, “We’re not going to mention this to Alex, right?” 

“_Definitely_ not mentioning this to Alex,” Nia agreed. 

*** 

Smarting from their failures to make any progress that day, the gang had decided a movie night was in order. After preparing a truly Kryptonian quantity of snack items, and briefly squabbling about film genres, they settled in, turned the lights down and fired up Netflix. 

The movie had barely started when a series of sharp knocks came at the door. 

“Uh oh,” Alex said as she sat up and paused the film. “Cop knock. I wonder what that’s about?” 

She peered through the peephole in the front door. “Yep, it’s a cop,” she warned them quietly. Everyone sat up a little straighter, worried about which recent incident of rulebreaking was coming back to bite them. Alex mustered up her least threatening facial expression and opened the door. “Good evening, officer, how can we help you?” 

“Ma’am, are you the folks who were up the hill hassling Jim Brandrick earlier today? He said a couple of lady tourists were chasing him down about a dead cat?” 

Kara started to correct him that she wasn’t a tourist, but Lena put a hand on her knee to dissuade her. 

“Um, yes, that was us, well some of us,” Alex replied. “We found the cat’s collar and thought he might want it back.” 

“He says you started asking him weird questions about telescopes and ballerinas?” the police officer continued. 

“Wha—” Kara started to interject again, but Lena gripped her knee tighter to stop her. “Lena,” she hissed, “he’s the one who brought up ballerinas! He’s making the whole thing seem ten times weirder than it was!” 

Lena shrugged helplessly and nodded her head pointedly in the cop’s direction to try to quiet Kara down. 

Alex was a bit lost with this turn of the questioning. “Uh, I wasn’t there so I’m not sure how on earth _that_ came up—” She turned and gave her sister a brief glare. “—but I can assure you it won’t happen again.” 

Apparently the cop wasn’t done. “And then, some more of you were hassling Ol’ Doc Walters at the vet clinic?” 

James and Nia looked anywhere but Alex. Brainy smiled at her and nodded approvingly at their actions that afternoon. 

“This is the first I’m hearing about _that_, but I certainly apologi—” Alex gritted out. 

“Thing is, some of the locals don’t take kindly to the tourists, especially when they run around bothering people and asking odd questions.” He peered through the doorway and scanned the interior of the house. “Fancy place you folks are renting out,” he commented, though he mostly seemed disappointed that his glance hadn’t yielded probable cause. 

He tried another tack. “Mind if I ask for some identification? Paperwork, you know…” 

“Not at all.” Alex pulled her DEO identification out of her back pocket, smoothly switching it to her FBI credentials before handing it over. 

The police officer’s eyebrows rose. “Feds. Interesting. Well, I guess I won’t keep you.” He didn’t appear to want to leave, but he’d also run out of reasons to stay. 

“Thanks, officer. We’re just sorry to have caused you all this fuss.” She glared at her troublemaking alien sister one more time, then returned her attention to the door. “Have a lovely evening,” she said firmly. 

The policeman hesitated for a tense moment, then turned to go. He paused at the bottom of the front steps. “Oh, and since I’m all the way out here! Some tourists were seen digging out on Surfside Beach, south of town, a few days ago. I don’t know if it was you folks, and I don’t need to, but if it was, don’t do it again. That sand caves in on you and you’ll suffocate; it sets like concrete, understand?” 

*** 

Alex watched his car turn back down the drive from a darkened window, making sure he really left the property. Once his headlights had disappeared over the hill, Alex resumed her spot on the couch curled up in Kelly’s arms. “So… ballerinas? I can’t wait to hear how the hell _that_ came up, Kara.” 

Kara was relieved that Alex was laughing about the situation. 

“That _jerkface_ was the one who brought it up,” she insisted. “Ask Lena!” 

Lena was reclined against Kara, with her head resting on her shoulder. Her hand had loosened its deathgrip on Kara’s knee, but it hadn’t moved. “It’s true. The jerkface did, in fact, bring it up.” 

*** 

The next morning, they met up with Eliza at a seaside restaurant for brunch. 

After a spirited debate over the respective merits of mimosas and bloody marys, they updated Eliza on their adventures, glossing over the vandalism, trespassing, and police visit. 

“I have to say, I’m relieved it isn’t actually a murder. I know you kids get mixed up in these sorts of things all the time, but I couldn’t help worrying.” 

Lena pulled the cat’s tag from her purse. “Eliza, do you have any guesses what this string of letters and numbers might mean?” 

“Well, I doubt it, but I’ll give it the old college try!” 

Lena handed the tag over. 

Eliza stared at it for a moment. “Actually, I think I can help! Alex, Kara, do you remember when I was having all that trouble about the property lines a couple of years back and had to hire those surveyors?” 

“The fence was falling down and the neighbors were refusing to let my mom replace it. It was a whole thing,” Alex briefly explained to the rest of the group. 

“Well, I spent a lot of time arguing with the county, and I think this is a parcel number. Look, the first four letters are the neighborhood. ‘UNIN’ probably means it's in the unincorporated outskirts. Then the next part narrows it down to the zone, and the number after the hyphen is the lot identifier within the zone.” 

“Holy moly!” Kara grabbed at the tag and stared fiercely at it as though she could decipher the address by sheer force of will. 

Lena, somewhat more sensibly, had already logged onto the county’s website and found the parcel search. “Kara, read me that number, if you would?” 

Kara obliged, and Lena hit the search button. 

“Amazing work, Eliza! The address came right up!” She turned to offer Kara a high five, but Kara was shrinking away from the phone. “What’s wrong, Kara?” 

“Oh, heck to the no! No way, José! Nosirree, Bob! Uh uh.” Kara crossed her arms. 

Lena turned the screen towards the group hoping someone could explain Kara’s reaction. Alex and Eliza peered at the screen. 

“Oh, I see, it’s the Hampstead Hospital,” Eliza realized. 

Alex looked around the table and explained. “It’s the old mental institution that shut down in the early 1970s. The kids always called it ‘Haunted Hospital’ and told scary stories about it. We used to dare each other to go out there and run the length of the main hallway at midnight.” 

“I’m sure you never did such a thing, honey,” Kelly teased Alex, while lightly scratching at the short hairs at the nape of her neck. 

“Definitely not,” Alex lied. “Scouts’ honor!” 

“Alexandra Danvers, you went to exactly one scout meeting and refused to ever go back. I think you girls are old enough now to start telling me about all the things you should have been grounded for,” Eliza laughed. “We can compare notes so you can be horrified about how many of them I already knew about at the time.” 

Alex was a deer in the headlights. Kara had bigger concerns, however. 

“So we’re all done with mysteries and we’re headed back to National City, right?” the blonde interjected hopefully. “Guys? Right, guys?” 

“Not a fucking chance,” Lena Luthor, closet horror movie superfan, replied with a gleam in her eye. 

**** 


	4. The Hampstead Haunting

“I’m not sure why we had to do this _at night_,” Kara complained, as their SUV wound its way along the country roads and towards Hampstead Hospital. “And on a full moon?” 

“Kara, if you want to talk about the timing of this vacation vis-a-vis the lunar phase, take it up with J’onn when we’re back in National City. Kelly, can you tell my sister that mental hospitals aren’t scary, so I can focus on driving?” Alex prodded. 

“Uh, not sure I can, honey. You guys said this place closed down in the early ‘70s, right?” 

Kara nodded apprehensively. 

“Yeah, these places were nightmares right up through the late 20th century. Ever heard of Willowbrook? People could get locked up basically on a whim, and once you were in, you were _in_. And if you were black or gay or female, you were that much more vulnerable. Husbands who got tired of their wives could pretty much just tell the doctor she’d gone crazy and that was that. And don’t even get me started on how they treated gay people.” 

Nia chimed in, “Oh, I’ve read about that. They’d subject LGBT people to endless rounds of electroshock, and worse.” She shuddered and shifted closer to Brainy. 

“Strange to think that people at the supposed cutting edge of medicine regularly behaved in ways that might even take Lillian aback,” Lena mused. Kara reached over and intertwined their fingers. 

“And medicine hadn’t really invented the idea of being kind to patients yet in general, so… yeeaaah. I can pretty much guarantee that some bad shit went down up there,” Kelly concluded. 

The SUV was silent for a long moment. 

“The barbarism of local custom within the context of recent history shocks me no matter how frequently I encounter it,” Brainy remarked. 

“Us too, man,” James agreed. “Us too.” 

*** 

The SUV crunched its way up the gravel drive. Alex had cut the lights to avoid attracting attention when they turned off the main road. Chain link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the wreck of a building. They parked around the back where their vehicle would be hidden from the road. 

Alex felt along the fence until she located the gap, then crept through it, and held the chain link back to let the rest of the group pass. The area in front of the building had once been a lovely garden, with two parallel walkways up to the entrance, but it was now an veritable jungle. 

“Watch out guys, some of these are overgrown rosebushes, and the thorns are nasty,” the elder Danvers sister cautioned. “Try not to get snagged, and definitely don’t let them snap back on anyone.” She let the branch she was holding snap back on Kara to demonstrate, lightening the tension somewhat. 

Kara might have been impervious to the thorns, but she still had to spit out a mouthful of leaves. 

“Blech! Great, just picking our way through a fairytale bramble at basically midnight, on a full moon, headed towards the abandoned insane asylum, nothing to worry about here,” Kara grumbled. A quick X-ray vision scan didn’t reveal any people, or ghosts. Could X-ray vision _see_ ghosts though? She gallantly pulled the next bunch of thornbushes aside so that Lena could pass unscathed. 

“My hero,” Lena teased. “I guess chivalry’s not dead even if we’re all going to get eaten by Frankenstein’s monster?” 

“Oh gosh, I hadn’t even thought to worry about Frankensteins!” Kara looked nervously toward the roof to check for lightning rods. 

When the gang finally made it through the foliage, they found that the lobby doors were locked. 

“Time for the Agent Danvers lockpick?” Kara gestured at Alex’s tactical boots. 

“Nah, there was a trick. Let’s see if I still remember it…” Alex pulled one door up and to the left, while James pushed the other forward, and the lock popped loose. “Ha! Still got it!” 

The gang slipped into the mouldering hospital lobby one by one and flicked on their flashlights. The walls were covered in graffiti courtesy of generations of Midvale’s teenagers, and spiderwebs clung to every surface. As their lights moved across the room, rats were briefly visible before scurrying back to the safety of darkness. There was an inescapable odor of decay. The floor was a mess of leaves and broken beer bottles. 

“How many of those were you responsible for, Alex?” Kelly asked with a laugh. 

“Zero,” Alex admitted. “I was kind of a goody-two-shoes in high school.” 

“She _totally_ was.” Kara wasn’t about to miss a chance to razz her sister. 

“Shut up, at least I’m not anymore, like _some people_.” 

Kara pointedly ignored that. “Hey, Kelly, I’ll make sure Eliza brings the photo album the next time we see her. Alex’s orthodontic headgear at the science olympiad finals was a sight to behold.” 

“_Kara!_” 

“A true marvel of civil engineering!” 

Lena suddenly piped up, in her most innocent voice. “Are there photos of you too, Kara?” 

Suddenly the photo album was much less funny. 

“Hoist by your own petard!” Alex crowed. 

Meanwhile, James, Nia and Brainy had found a building map hung on the lobby wall, but half of it was obscured by spray paint, and the rest was peeling off the wall. The three of them tried to move the tatters back into place, but it was no use. 

“This place is huge,” James remarked. “We’re never going to be able to search the whole thing. And half the map has been chewed up by bugs so it’s hard to know where to even start.” 

“Perhaps it would ensure a maximally effective search strategy if our efforts were less duplicative,” Brainy proposed. 

“Ooh, no way, I do not like the sound of that.” Kara was frantically shaking her head no. 

“You guys, I’ve always wanted to say this…” Alex paused dramatically, her face lit weirdly from below by her upturned flashlight. “We’re going to have to split up!” 

*** 

“I do not understand why these dark hallways are seen to differ substantively from dark hallways at the lower levels of the DEO. The only apparent differentiators are the scattered detritus and the accumulation of dust.” Brainy swiped at a spiderweb that spanned the hallway. 

“It’s… well, it’s a cultural thing I guess,” Nia explained. “I think it’s the idea that bad things happened here once before, and that the bad vibes linger even after everyone is gone.” 

She shined her light on the nameplates next to the doors. The other two groups had chosen hallways apparently at random, but Nia had a plan. 

“When we get back to the city, we’ll have a horror movie night,” she promised absently, inspecting another nameplate. 

When she got to the fourth door on the left, she grinned. “Jackpot!” 

She tried the doorknob, but it was locked. She stepped back and did her best Vanna White. 

“Would you care to do the honors?” 

“Certainly,” he replied, before kicking the door in. 

*** 

“I can’t believe you freaking agreed to this,” Kara muttered anxiously. “You’re the horror movie buff. Isn’t ‘don’t split up’ the first rule?” 

“Hey, we’re ahead of the game here, Supergirl,” Lena whispered back. “Every single one of us is in sensible shoes and half of you have superpowers.” 

“Do superpowers work against ghosts?” 

“You believe in ghosts?” 

“I don’t believe in ghosts in the middle of the day at CatCo, no,” Kara replied. “But after dark, while sneaking through the ruins of a creepy—” a sudden crash reverberated strangely through the halls, causing Kara to let out a small scream. 

Lena reached out for Kara’s hand; she grasped it gratefully. 

“—a creepy old sanitarium?” Kara continued after catching her breath. “Yes, I most certainly do!” 

*** 

“Oh god, I’m Velma!” James suddenly announced. He was flipping through a pile of long-abandoned patient charts. He showed one of them to his sister. 

“Ugh, glad to see they took patient privacy seriously. Full names and social security numbers, just left here to rot,” Kelly remarked. “And what are you talking about?” 

“I’m wandering through a spooky building, third-wheeling it with Fred and Daphne.” He gestured vaguely at his sister and Alex, and grinned. “I’m totally the Velma.” 

“Actually, I always suspected Daphne and Velma had a thing going on. Freddie was the Velma and he didn’t even know it!” Alex shot back. “Jesus, would you look at this? Unlocked drawers full of heavy duty psych meds.” She rattled a bottle at them to prove it was still full of pills. 

“I’m calling the board of health about this place when we’re done,” Kelly declared. 

James set the chart back on the teetering pile and the whole thing slid to the ground. 

*** 

Kara and Lena had made their way down the first hallway and taken several turns after that, finding nothing more interesting than dusty, indistinguishable corridors. They passed a third nurses’ station, or was it the fourth? 

“How is it that you can face down homicidal robots or giant spiders or my lunatic mother, but _this_ is what freaks you right the fuck out?” 

“Lena, you know I can’t even watch scary movies. This is, like, scary movies on steroids. Of course it freaks me right the… _heck_ out. Do you even know where we are? I’m all turned around.” She gazed anxiously up and down the hallway. 

Lena was a bit turned around too, but she’d sooner give up her billions than admit that to Kara right now. 

“Kara, you can punch through a wall and fly us out of here if we need to.” 

“Right, right. I can totally do that.” She didn’t sound reassured. “That is a thing I can do.” 

Lena stopped, turned to face her friend, and grabbed her other hand as well. “Kara, I am a brilliant billionaire CEO slash engineer, and you are a similarly brilliant superhero slash ace reporter. We eat scarier things than this for lunch.” 

“Well you do. I’ve seen those kale smoothies,” Kara joked nervously. 

A weird slithery noise came echoing down the hallway and spooked her again. She leapt in front of Lena, arms spread wide as if to protect her. 

“Kara, Kara, darling, calm down. One of the others just knocked something over.” She grabbed Kara’s shoulder and gently pivoted her around again. “This place is a mess. It’s probably your sister karate-chopping something.” She flailed her arms in a vaguely karate-like way, hoping to elicit a smile, but Kara remained on edge. 

“OK, come here.” She pulled Kara into a hug and ran a hand comfortingly up and down her back. Kara buried her face in Lena’s neck. She took a deep breath to calm herself, reveling in the familiar scent of Lena’s perfume. 

“I feel like a weenie,” Kara finally admitted. “Everyone else seems to think this is fun. And _logically_ I know it’s just an old building, but…” 

Lena hugged her tighter. “Shh… Hey, it’s OK. Even tough, brave superheroes are allowed to get freaked out by things.” 

Kara focused on the embrace for several more seconds, but then: “You think I’m tough and brave?” The anxiety in her voice had shifted to intrigue. She brought her hands up slowly to circle Lena’s waist. She braced for her friend to stiffen or move away, but Lena just pulled her closer. One hand settled in at the small of Kara’s back, and the other came up to stroke the back of her neck. 

“Fishing for compliments, Supergirl? You know you’re brave and you _certainly_ know you’re tough.” She tilted her head slightly so she could whisper into Kara’s ear. “You don’t need me to tell you any of that.” Kara’s entire body erupted in goosebumps. 

Kara hesitated. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but she wanted to find out. 

“Maybe I like to hear it sometimes though,” she admitted softly, “especially from you.” 

Lena backed off a few centimeters and bit her lip. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. The hand on Kara’s neck moved to caress her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly, then reopened them to gaze into Kara’s. 

“Kara Danvers, if you don’t want me to kiss you, you need to stop saying such wonderful things to me,” she murmured breathlessly. 

Kara froze for a brief moment, then surged forward and met Lena’s mouth with her own. 

*** 

Alex, Kelly, and James had found a storage room full of patients’ surrendered belongings. 

“I can’t believe all of this is just abandoned here,” Kelly said as she sifted through a box. “Look, there are wallets, jewelry… This ring has a wedding date engraved in it! This is ridiculous! Did they just throw everyone out on their ear when the place shut down?” 

“I don’t really know. By the time I was old enough to know much about this place, it had been closed for ages, and the adults never really talked about it.” Alex pulled a sheaf of legal papers out of one of the boxes. “Jesus, people must have needed some of these things back.” 

“I’m thinking a multi-part CatCo investigative piece is going to come out of this,” James agreed as he flipped through someone’s pocket album of fading baby photos. “Think Kara has room on her shelf for another Pulitzer?” 

*** 

Lena had no idea how long they had been trading kisses in the dark corridor, when Kara pulled away, suddenly on high alert. “I just heard Nia yell! She and Brainy found something!” 

Lena tugged her back down for one more long kiss, before backing off. 

“All right, lead the way, Supergirl,” she ordered the stunned superhero with a wink. 

*** 

The rest of the gang found Nia and Brainy in the records room, surrounded by stacks of files. 

“What do you have to report?” Alex demanded. Nia’s eyes went wide. 

“Stand down, Agent Danvers,” James joked. 

“Right! Friends, not an interrogation,” Alex replied sheepishly. “Sorry, Nia.” 

Nia just laughed. 

“I thought there might be something in the files. We didn’t have any luck in the patient files, but then I found the _employee_ files, and bingo.” She held out a file folder. “‘Mrs. Tabitha Brandrick’ was apparently a candystriper here briefly in the early 1940s, according to this document that is obviously at least fifty years more recent than that.” 

Alex pulled the document out of the folder and everyone crowded around to get a look. If Lena was crowding into Kara more closely than was strictly necessary, Kara was not inclined to complain. 

“Everything else in this room either came out of a typewriter or was a dot matrix printout on that green bar paper. This looks like it came out of a laser printer. I mean, look, there’s more than one font, and it’s not monospaced.” 

“Wow, good eye, Nia!” Kelly commended. 

“That is not all,” Brainy chimed in, “Nia has identified information within the document that will surely propel this investigation further.” 

“Yeah, see these alphanumeric codes down the left? They’re, like, personnel codes. There’s one when you get hired, and one when you get through training and can work on the floor, one for logging weekly timecard totals, and for sick days, and so on.” 

The group nodded. 

“So, the first two pages are normal. The codes all match up to similar codes on other documents from the actual 1940s, and they’re all two letters, then three numbers. But on page three, things get weird.” 

Alex flipped to page three and scanned her flashlight over the page. “These ones here in the middle are just numbers.” 

“Yep, four numbers, then back to the usual timecard codes, and eventually an employee termination code.” 

“Any guesses what the numbers mean?” James asked. 

“We have yet to ascertain the specific underlying meaning of the mystery values,” Brainy replied. 

“Offshore accounts?” James hazarded. 

Alex was peering closely at the document. “No, they’re too short. They look more like dollar amounts, but there are four decimals. Some kind of financial thing?” 

“Share counts only go to three decimal points,” Lena replied absently. 

They all wracked their brains. 

“I believe I have arrived at a plausible hypothesis,” Brainy announced. “Am I correct in my recollection that the first number was smaller than 90, and the second was smaller than 180?” 

Alex looked down at the paper to verify, then nodded. 

“That being the case, I propose that the numbers may correspond to the geographic coordinate system commonly used on this planet, or, more colloquially, the latitude and the longitude.” 

A quick check on Lena’s phone confirmed that the numbers corresponded to a nearby point right on the coast. 

“Alex,” Kara gasped, “that’s Makeout Point!” 

**** 


	5. The Mystery of Makeout Point

Kara wasn’t sure what to do with herself as the SUV sped toward the remote location on the Midvale bluffs. An hour ago, she and Lena had been best friends; now she didn’t know what they were. And a crowded vehicle full of busybodies was not exactly a place the two of them could sort that out. 

They were seated together in the SUV’s middle row, and all she could focus on were the places where their bodies touched. The bucket seats enforced some distance, but Lena was leaning toward her, and every time they hit a bump in the road, their shoulders or knees would brush, and she’d feel like she was on fire. 

Kara’s attempts to quietly work herself into a panic were disrupted when a hand slowly intertwined itself with hers. “Kara, take a breath,” Lena whispered, so quietly that only a Kryptonian could possibly hear it. 

Kara did take a breath, finally, and it helped. 

“Thanks, Lena.” She squeezed her friend’s hand slightly. Lena put her head on Kara’s shoulder. 

*** 

At last, they pulled into the parking lot at the top of the bluffs and exited the SUV. As they passed under a streetlamp, Alex glanced at her sister, did a double take, and then grinned. 

She leaned in closely, and whispered, “Nice lipstick, Kar!” 

Kara furiously rubbed at her face, and Alex laughed. "Shut up, Alex!” she hissed. 

Being a big sister meant _not_ shutting up in this kind of scenario. “Kara and Lena, sitting in a tree…” 

“Shut _up!_” 

“Uh, problem over there, you two?” James asked. 

“Nope, nothing. Everything is peachy!” Kara squeaked out. She gave Alex a pleading look. 

Alex relented. “Nah, just sister stuff, James.” She wrapped an arm around Kara’s shoulder and whispered, “I fucking _knew_ it! Happy for you nerds.” After giving her sister a light noogie and a final squeeze, she jogged up the hill to catch up with her girlfriend. 

As the group continued up the short trail to the lookout, Lena hooked her arm through Kara’s. “What was that all about?” 

“Lipstick,” Kara intoned mournfully. 

Lena laughed. “Sorry, darling, I should have thought of that.” She reached over with her thumb to rub at a couple of spots Kara had missed. 

*** 

“Well, this is it,” Alex informed them as they reached the end of the trail. “Makeout Point!” 

It was a high point on the cliffs, just over a rise that ensured privacy from anyone driving along the coast road. It overlooked a small cove, with rocky cliffs rising sharply above the water on the opposite side. There was a picnic area off to the left, and an information board described the sea life that might be visible from the area for a lucky tourist. At just after midnight, however, the Pacific Ocean was an inky expanse but for the reflected moonlight. 

“Wow, I bet it’s gorgeous out here at sunset,” Kelly exclaimed. 

“So this is where the randy teens of Midvale High came to fool around?” James joked. 

“Well, not _me_,” Alex replied. “I was uninterested for reasons that wouldn’t become apparent for a decade or so.” Kelly kissed her cheek adoringly. “Kara broke two different guys’ noses up here though!” 

“_Alexxxxx!_” 

“They tried to move a little too fast?” Nia asked sympathetically. 

Kara turned beet red and buried her face in her hands. “Less that and more that I didn’t quite have my powers under control yet, when I got distracted…,’ she mumbled. 

Everyone laughed. 

Lena wrapped Kara up in a hug to ease her mortification. “Well, I’m glad you do _now_,” she murmured in Kara’s ear. “That would have been harder to explain away than a little lipstick.” It was too low for the rest of the gang to hear, but it sure didn’t help Kara’s blush. 

Alex clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “OK! It’s the middle of the night and I assume we’d all like to get _some_ sleep, so fan out and see if you can find anything!” Being an older sister might mean tormenting your younger sister, but it also meant knowing when to let up and distract everyone else. 

*** 

Everyone did their best to make themselves useful, but whereas the hospital search had been overwhelming in its scope, the bluff presented very little in terms of starting points. 

Nia and Brainy checked the faded tourist information board for any hidden clues. James was rattling picnic tables and fenceposts to see if any of them might be loose and hiding crucial information, but didn’t seem very hopeful. 

Kara was a couple hundred feet away, scanning the turf for possible buried items. Lena had stuck close by her side “to help,” which included wearing Kara’s glasses for safekeeping. Scanning and helping also seemed to involve rather more whispering and giggling than one might expect. 

“What’s that all about?” Kelly asked Alex, gesturing vaguely to the two women. 

“Yeah, so I don’t know exactly what happened at the hospital, but Kara ended up covered in Lena’s lipstick.” 

Kelly laughed. “No shit?” 

“You should have seen the look on her face when I pointed it out.” Alex did her best to mimic a poleaxed Kara. 

Kara, unable to tune out the conversation with her glasses off, directed her most fearsome glare in Alex’s direction. Alex stuck her tongue out. 

“Hey, honey?” Kelly elbowed Alex and pointed toward viewing station near the cliff edge. “What about that sightseeing telescope?” 

“Oh, hmm, good thought, but that thing hasn’t worked since before I was a kid… Though, hell, who knows, check and see if they fixed it at some point!” 

The barrel of the telescope was pointed at the ground, and the eyepiece was too high to reach. Kelly dug in her pocket and found a dime to unlock the mechanism and reposition it. She looked through it, but all she could see was darkness. She tried a few different directions with no luck, until she aimed it at the full moon. 

“Holy shit, Alex! I don’t think it’s broken!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I can see the light of the moon through it; I just can’t focus it properly. What if it just needs a _lens!_” 

Alex stared at her for a moment, and then realization hit. “Oh shit!” 

Brainy and Nia overheard and looked up from their inspection of the tourist information board. Nia chimed in excitedly, “they’ve got a list of telescope settings for points of interest around here. I bet that’s what the other two numbers from the Tabitha Brandrick file are!” 

Alex pulled Kelly in for a quick kiss. “My girlfriend is a freaking genius!” 

Kara, Lena, and James had come over to join in the excitement. James gave his sister a high five. 

Brainy threw some cold water on the discovery. “The fortuitousness of this moment is dampened by the distance between this location and our home base. My estimate is that it will take twenty-five minutes each way to retrieve the lens in order to validate Kelly’s hypothesis.” 

“Ugh, fuck, you’re right, Brainy,” Alex admitted. “Hey, Kar?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Any chance you could fly back to the house and grab the telescope lens?” 

Kara grimaced a little. “I’m not wearing the suit. I guess I could, but with the full moon, I’m going to be pretty visible… It’s probably late enough that no one would see me though?” 

“No, you’re right,” Alex conceded. “Not worth the risk. Mom will kill me if a blurry photo of you ends up on the front page of the paper. OK, guys, I guess we’re piling back in the truck one way or the other, but show of hands for who wants to come back out here tonight, and who wants to call it for now and start up in the morning, after some sleep?” 

Everyone looked dejected. Well, everyone except one. 

Lena whooped triumphantly. Everyone turned, shocked at the uncharacteristic outburst. “Alex, you may be a Girl Scout dropout, but I was a member right up until I went off to boarding school, because my mother fucking hated it. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Scout motto?” 

Six clueless faces gazed back at her. 

“You guys are utterly fucking hopeless.” She tugged the telescope lens out of her bag and brandished it at the group. “Be Prepared!” 

*** 

In addition to the lens itself, Lena’s bag produced a multitool that made quick work of cracking open the telescope housing and fitting the lens into place. She also had a coinpurse of leftover dimes from the microfiche room. She dropped one into the pay slot to unlock the device again, then carefully set the azimuth and altitude according to the values from the hospital document. When the process was complete, the telescope was aimed at something low on the cliff face across the cove. 

“Well, let’s hope sitting out here in the weather for so long hasn’t mucked up the calibration. With that lens, it’s the highest horsepower tourist telescope on the entire coast.” She stepped back and gestured toward the device. “Kelly, I believe you get first crack at this one?” 

Kelly stepped up to the eyepiece, and the group held their breath. 

“Holy shit! There’s a small cave opening just above the rocks!” 

She stepped aside and let the others take a turn. 

Alex was furiously jabbing at her phone. “Guys, if we want to get in there, we need to go _now_. I checked the tide tables for this inlet, and it’s going to be low tide just over an hour from now. And it’s a spring tide, so it’s lower than usual, but it’ll come back up _fast_. Those rocks will be inaccessible once that happens, and we’ll be waiting until even later in the morning tomorrow for another shot at it.” 

*** 

There was no question of whether or not they would follow the clue. They sped away from Makeout Point to a beach access point near the base of the cliffs. They didn’t even stop to remove the lens from the telescope; they would have to go back for that later. 

They hurried down to the beach and toward the cliffs. The low tide made it easy to clamber over the boulders at the base and eventually reach the small mouth of the cave, though they had to watch out for slippery piles of seaweed. 

“OK, guys, it took us seven minutes to get out here. Tide turns in 35 minutes, which means we have just over an hour before the water is back up to its current levels, and it’ll keep rising from there. I’m setting a timer, but you all need to keep an eye on the time too, or we’re going to be holed up here for hours.” 

Alex was in full Agent Danvers mode now. Getting arrested at the museum would have been bad, but if SAR had to save her from a cave, no one at the DEO would ever let her hear the end of it. 

Neither would her mom. 

“Are we synchronizing our watches?” Kara asked hopefully. 

“Your phone is already synced to an atomic clock somewhere, dummy.” 

Kara removed her wristwatch and fiddled with it regardless. 

“Everyone, flashlights on, watch your heads, and keep an eye out for bats,” Alex cautioned. 

“Bats?” Nia blanched. 

Brainy’s instinct for making things worse was functioning as well as ever. “I have read that the flying earth mammal of the order Chiroptera can carry the virus ‘rabies’ asymptomatically, and encounters with the creatures may therefore necessitate a series of unpleasant vaccine injections as a prophylactic measure.” 

Nia looked around at the group, not sure why no one else was concerned. 

“Come on, let’s get a move on: time and tide wait for no man, et cetera!” Alex was determined to get the group moving again. “James, you bring up the rear and make sure we don’t lose anyone?” James nodded in assent, and she ducked and entered the cave. 

*** 

The cave was narrow. James had to turn sideways to get his broad shoulders through the tighter passages, and nearly everyone had to duck. The passage rose steadily upwards; the first thirty feet or so were damp, and the rock was slippery with sand and vegetation, but as they ascended, it turned dry, and the footing less treacherous. 

“Oh hey!” Lena exclaimed. “Do you guys feel that? There’s a draft. That’s good news — at least if we get stuck here we won’t suffocate.” 

Kara had been keeping a hand on Lena’s hip, definitely for safety and not for any other reason. She squeezed it slightly in response. Lena was unbelievably attractive when she said something smart. Granted, that was nearly all the time, but Kara didn’t make the rules. 

After another minute, they came to their first dilemma: the passageway split into two options. Alex called a halt. 

“James, grab some of the loose rocks and build a cairn in _this_ tunnel so we know which direction we came from when we’re heading back out. The rest of you: we’re not getting separated down here, so left or right?” 

Nia made a successful pitch for “right” on the grounds that it went uphill, whereas the left passageway seemed to descend back toward the water. 

They continued. 

“Hey,” Alex exclaimed, “It seems to sort of widen up here.” The low ceiling of the passage gave way to a vaulted cathedral of rock. “Oh shit, I can see the stars! There’s an opening up on the bluffs. Turn your flashlights off for a second.” 

The moonlight that filtered down through the natural chimney gave the space an eerie glow, and the Milky Way was visible overhead. The natural acoustics of the chamber made their voices echo ethereally. 

“Wow, that’s really beautiful,” Lena murmured. 

Kara wrapped her arms around her from behind. “Yeah, can’t get that in the city for sure…” 

The rest of the gang had continued forward, relishing the elbow room. 

“It seems to be a dead end,” Kelly realized. “I guess we either find something here or we try the other fork in the road.” 

Everyone flicked their flashlights back on and focused on searching. 

“Let’s be efficient, guys,” Alex cautioned. “We have fifteen minutes until we need to turn back to beat the tide, unless we want Kara to have to ferry us up to the bluff one by one.” 

It was James who finally noticed the alcove. The geometry of the rock wall made it easy for a person’s gaze to glide right past it. “Hey guys!” came his excited shout. “I found something!” 

They all rushed over and focused their flashlight beams on James’s discovery: it was a large bell. 

“How on earth did _that_ get there?” Nia wondered. 

James nodded in agreement. “They must have lowered it down from the top of the cliffs. No way it could have made it through that tunnel.” 

Alex moved in for a closer look. “Holy shit, Kara, I think you were right all along! It _is_ pirate treasure, sort of!” 

“What do you mean?” Kara asked. 

“Look at the name.” Alex shined her flashlight on at a short piece of text cast into the rim of the bell. 

“The Golden Hind,” Lena gasped. She clutched Kara’s arm and raised her other hand to her mouth in shock. 

“But what does that _mean_ ?” Kara implored. The rest of the group seemed equally at sea. 

“Oh right, I forget you missed fourth grade California history,” Alex replied. “The Golden Hind was Sir Francis Drake’s ship. He was a privateer, a sort of legitimate pirate who robbed Spanish ships of their gold under the authority of Queen Elizabeth I. And somehow, this seems to be his ship’s bell.” 

Now _everyone_ gasped. 

**** 


	6. All's Said and Done

“OK, jailbirds, you’re free to go!” 

The gang had been crammed into a holding cell at the Midvale jail for the last forty-five minutes while things were sorted out. Only a flash of her FBI badge had spared Alex the same fate. 

Now Alex was ushering them to freedom. 

“I almost had you out of here when Luthor’s army of lawyers descended and terrorized the place,” she laughed. “They scared the police chief so badly he’s going to need new pants. I think I’m the one back here letting you out because everyone else’s hands were still trembling.” 

Lena was pleased; she liked to get her money’s worth. 

“Did you actually manage to sort out what happened?” Kelly asked. 

“OK, so it turns out the bell isn’t _exactly_ new news. It was originally found in the late 19th century, but couldn’t be authenticated, so they basically put it on display in a city hall meeting room and forgot about it. During World War II, there was a big push to turn in metal for scrap, to support the war effort, and the mayor put the bell in the scrap pile.” 

Several eyebrows went up. 

“Yeeeeah. What the hell, right? Anyway, oh hey, Kar, you know your friend the jerkface?” 

Kara nodded. 

“Jerkface’s dad, Todd, was a local history buff even in his teens, so he tried to put a stop to it. The mayor was convinced the thing was a forgery and wouldn’t budge. The dad kept meticulous journals about all this, which Jerkface helpfully brought to the station, by the way, so he’s not all bad. Anyhow, I guess he snuck in the night before the army came to pick up the scrap and stole it. 

“No one except the Brandricks ever knew. Jerkface didn’t even know what it was. It was in their garage for, like, fifty years, but when his health started to decline a decade ago, Todd Brandrick decided he needed to relocate it. Jerkface says his dad had an old pickup with a winch; he must have driven it up to the bluff and gotten the bell down through the chimney that way. 

“Oh! And remember that article about the opening of his medical practice in the early ‘70s? He had worked at the old hospital before he into went private practice, which was how he knew all the information he needed to make up the Tabitha Brandrick personnel file.” 

“But why the scavenger hunt?” Lena asked. “Why not just turn it back over to the town? And why bury the first clue five feet down where no one would ever find it?” 

“According to the journals, he wanted to ensure that the discovery made a splash, so the bell wouldn’t be relegated to storage again.” 

Lena looked dubious. 

“I know, it’s fuckin’ _ridiculous_, but you can’t say it didn’t work,” Alex replied. “And he didn’t bury it five feet down. He buried it about eighteen inches down, and the ocean did the rest. He thought someone would find it with a metal detector within a couple months. The lead foil lining was make sure a metal detector would pick it up, and to add more mystery in case they tried to X-ray it. The police would have to call all the Brandricks trying to track down Tabitha, and pretty soon the whole town would go crazy trying to figure out what was going on.” 

“Anyhow, we’re a bunch of no-shit big-time town heroes. They’re throwing together a ceremony for Saturday. I think we get medals or something.” 

“And will there be refreshments?” Kara inquired hopefully. 

*** 

Word spread like wildfire through the small town as dawn broke. The gang had gotten back to the vacation rental just before 5AM and everyone had headed to their rooms to crash. At half past seven, a terrific knocking started on the door. They all did their best to sleep through it, but after a minute or so, Alex’s cell phone started to ring. She had fallen asleep sprawled across Kelly, who was flat on her back and snoring slightly. Alex rolled over and brushed her hair out of her eyes to check the screen, hoping it was someone she could ignore, but it was Eliza. 

“Fuck!” 

“What? What happened?” Kelly asked groggily as she began to rouse from her sleep. 

“Go back to sleep, it’s my mom pounding on the door downstairs. She wants to yell at me, and maybe at Kara, but the rest of you are probably safe.” 

“Mm, ‘k.” Kelly rolled over on her side and was out like a light. 

Alex had fallen asleep in her t-shirt and boxer briefs. She quickly pulled a pair of joggers on and padded over to Kara’s room. If she had to face the music, her sister got to as well. She texted her mom that she’d be down to get the door in a couple minutes. The knocking downstairs stopped. 

When she got to Kara’s room, she tapped on the door, but no one answered. Kara always could sleep like a rock. Alex slowly pushed the door open, “Kar?” 

There was still no response. She flicked the light on, and the bed was empty and perfectly made. Her eyebrows rose. Now her sister was missing too? 

She almost went downstairs to deal with her enraged mother by herself, but then a thought occurred to her. She padded over to the next door and tapped. “Lena?” 

After a moment, she heard someone stir from within the room. Finally the door opened and Lena Luthor peeked out. 

“Yes? Do you need something, Alex?” 

Lena looked, for lack of a better phrase, like absolute shit. Apparently a night of adventure, an hour in police custody, and a rude awakening after just two hours of sleep were what it took to shatter the CEO’s poise. She had only opened the door a crack, conspicuously preventing Alex from seeing into the room at all, and was clad in a light robe held closed with one hand. 

“Any chance my sister is in there?” 

Lena’s eyes went wide. “Uhhh…” 

Alex noticed red marks on Lena’s neck that definitely hadn’t been there three hours ago. Lena noticed her noticing, and the rest of her face and neck turned nearly as red as the marks. 

“Look, I don’t even want to know. We can schedule a shovel talk for some other time. Just, could you send her downstairs? My mom is here and on the warpath, judging by the racket downstairs.” Alex was too exhausted to even enjoy a round of “keep yer paws off my sister.” 

“Yes, I can do that.” 

“Thank you. Sorry for waking you, Luthor. Go back to sleep.” 

Lena clicked the door shut, and Alex could hear a muted panic on the other side. She turned and headed down the stairs to face her fate. The kitchen was on the way, and, critically, not entirely visible from the front windows, so she took a moment to start a pot of coffee. 

She finally arrived at the front door to let her mom storm into the house, just as a visibly nervous Kara appeared at the top of the stairs. 

“Alexandra Danvers, what in god’s name have you been up to this week?” Eliza had worked up a full head of steam and wasn’t inclined to wait for a response. “I _knew_ you should have taken that note to the police in the first place! Half the town has called me already this morning! Your sister got _arrested?!_” 

Alex grimaced. “Shh, shh, mom, everyone’s asleep. Come yell at us in the kitchen where you won’t wake them up. And no one got arrested. They just got, uh, put in a holding cell until the police decided no one was getting arrested.” 

Judging by Eliza’s expression, that was a distinction without a difference. 

Kara piped up from behind them. “I’m fine Eliza. We’re not in trouble.” As she came around the corner, she got a better look at Eliza’s face and amended her statement. “Uh, with the police at least…” 

*** 

Eventually, they had mollified Eliza enough that she agreed to go home. A promise to have her over for a barbecue again that night helped her make the transition to scolding them about their lack of sleep. 

“Ugh, small towns! I’m glad we normally only have to explain our ridiculous antics to J’onn,” Kara said as they watched Eliza’s car disappear down the drive. “He’s _way_ less scary.” 

Alex nodded in agreement. “Oh, hey Kar? When we get back to the DEO, I’m going to need to run some tests on you, OK?” 

Kara’s eyebrows rose. “Uh, sure, what for?” 

“Just a phylogenetic analysis to see if Kryptonians are related to lampreys.” 

Sleep deprivation meant that it took Kara longer than usual to figure out quite what Alex was getting at, but eventually: “_Oh my freaking god_, shut up!” 

“No, you shut up. And try to make sure that poor girl still has a neck by the time she gets back to National City? OK, that’s all the teasing I can muster in this state. We’ll resume this afternoon. Go snuggle with your boo.” 

Kara grumbled at her but wasn’t about to complain about being shooed back to bed. 

*** 

** _Saturday afternoon…_ **

Midvale had never seen such a hubbub. The town square was festooned with decorations, and the bell itself was in a place of pride on the stage. Even Jim “Jerkface” Brandrick was there; more surprisingly, he was being downright civil. 

A representative from the California Office of Historic Preservation gave a excited speech about an upcoming metallurgical analysis. Apparently even if turned out to be a forgery, it was an old enough forgery to be of genuine historical interest. The mayor then delivered an overly-long speech of his own before presenting the gang with medals and a key to the city, which Kara accepted on their behalf. 

Eliza was on cloud nine the entire day. She had been relentlessly taking snapshots of the group. After James offered to take a few photos of her with her daughters wearing their medals, she immediately went online and purchased a picture frame for whichever shot turned out best. Alex was both pleased and vaguely mortified at the unbridled positive attention. 

And to Kara’s infinite delight, there _were_ refreshments. 

*** 

** _Back in National City…_ **

Alex strode into the DEO command room for the first time in two weeks. It was good to be home. 

“Ah, she returns! It’s good to have you back, Agent Danvers.” 

“J’onn! It’s good to be back.” 

“How was the vacation? Relaxing, I hope?” 

Alex tensed up slightly. “Yes, very relaxing. We relaxed. All of us, the entire time.” 

Agent Vasquez quirked an eyebrow from the safety of her workstation. 

“No surprises?” 

“100% surprise free. Yep, yep. Endless peace and quiet. Sunshine and relaxation.” 

J’onn pulled a newspaper from behind his back “So I guess it was another pair of Danvers Sisters who cracked Midvale’s most enduring mystery?” 

Alex recognized the masthead of the Midvale Observer. Above the fold, there was a large photo of Kara enthusiastically accepting the key to the city from the Mayor. She grimaced. “Shit… I swear we did relax though! Plenty of time for fun in between all of… that.” She gestured vaguely at the paper. 

J’onn stared at her impassively and crossed his arms. 

“Don’t make me take more vacation, J’onn, it’s exhausting! Please let me come back to work! Look how thrilled I am to be here on a Monday!” 

J’onn finally cracked a smile and clapped her on the shoulder. 

“Welcome back to the DEO, Agent Danvers. They’re just starting in the briefing room, and they’ll bring you up to speed.” 

As Alex jogged off, J’onn made one last comment. “Oh, and Agent Danvers?” 

“Yes?” She stopped and turned to see a stern expression on his face. 

“You and your friends should know better than to dig holes on the beach,” he chastised. “If the sand caves in, it sets like concrete!” 

*** 

** _Monday night…_ **

Lena and Kara had just returned to Lena’s luxurious apartment after work, laden with armloads of takeout. Kara was busily plating up the food and setting the table, chattering the whole time. 

“Are vacations always like that? I would have taken one _way_ before if I’d known!” She carefully aligned the napkins with the placemats. “Do you think the key to the city actually opens anything, or is it just decorative? Maybe there’s, like, a special clean bathroom at city hall that it opens? The public one was really bad! It actually had one of those old towel machines that just cycles the same filthy towel through again and again.” 

At the lack of response she looked up to find Lena nervously fiddling with a corkscrew as she tried to open the bottle of wine. Kara’s brows creased. “Lena, is something up? You seem quiet.” 

Lena sighed and set the corkscrew down. She looked a little lost. 

Kara pulled her into a hug, and Lena desperately buried her face in her neck. “Come on, tell me what’s up.” 

“It’s just—” Lena stopped to organize her thoughts a little. “Sometimes things make sense on vacation and then they don’t make so much sense when you get home. Like, you go to France and you daydream about upending your life to run a vineyard, but when you get home, it doesn’t make actual sense and you tell your real estate attorney to cancel the purchase, and you go back to your regular life… I was just afraid… Kara, are you _sure_ we make sense?” 

Now all Lena’s worries started pouring out. 

“You’re going to have to deal with Luthor-level scrutiny, and it’s going to be a hundred times as difficult to keep Supergirl’s identity a secret, and I work literally all the time, and if this isn’t going to work out, you have to tell me _now_. Because if I get to keep you for six months but then you realize it’s too much, it will _kill_ me—” 

She let out a desperate little sob, then pulled back to look Kara in the eye. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind Kara’s ear. 

“—I need to know that you’re _sure_.” 

Kara’s soul ached at how someone as wonderful and multi-talented as Lena always grappled with whether anyone in the world actually liked her. She gathered Lena back into an embrace. 

“Oh, sweetie,” she murmured, “have you been worrying about this all day?” Lena was weeping into her shoulder in earnest now. Kara ran her hands up and down her girlfriend’s back soothingly, until she calmed a little. 

“Lena, I love you. I _love_ you. We’ll figure it out,” Kara promised. 

“But how can you be _sure_—” 

Kara interrupted her with a kiss, then pulled back a few centimeters once Lena had relaxed into her arms. She brought a hand around to wipe away Lena’s tears. 

“We’ll figure it out, I _promise_. Lena, in all the years we’ve known each other, and worked side by side, when has there ever been _anything_ that the two of us couldn’t figure out in the end?” 

Lena sniffled, but her eyes were brighter. 

“You’re right, Kara.” She took a breath and ran her hand affectionately down Kara’s cheek. “Together, I’d bet we could figure out anything.” 

*** 

** _That Friday…_ **

After surviving their first week back at work, the gang gathered at Kara’s favorite Chinese restaurant to celebrate. 

Kara was determined to resolve one remaining mystery: “So, James, what happened with the jellyfish?” 

Kelly and Alex chortled. 

James looked mortified. “You told Alex?!” 

“Of course I told Alex,” Kelly said with a laugh. 

“Big sister solidarity!” Alex and Kelly high-fived. 

“All right, fine. In 8th grade, we took a class trip to Atlantic City, for a graduation celebration. We were all out playing frisbee on the beach, and I got stung by a jellyfish. It was unpleasant. The end.” 

Kelly was full-on giggling at this point. “That’s not the good part of the story, and you know it, Jimmy!” 

He groaned. 

Kelly looked at him hopefully. “Can I? _Can I_ ?” 

“_Fine_, Kelly, go ahead,” he finally agreed. 

“All right, you know that episode of _Friends_ where Monica gets stung by a jellyfish and Chandler pees on her to stop the stinging?” 

“Oh no…” Kara looked a little green. “I think maybe I’m sorry I asked…” 

“Oh don’t worry, Kara, it’s not _quite_ what you think. The important part is that _James_ had seen the episode. He was terrified to tell an adult, because he was afraid they’d take him to urgent care and the doctors would pee on him!” 

Mortified, James just held his head in his hands and groaned. 

Kelly continued. “He suffered silently for two weeks before telling mom! _Two weeks!_” 

*** 

Dinner was winding to a close, and the gang was debating the merits of ordering dessert at the restaurant versus going elsewhere for ice cream. Kara was an enthusiastic vote for “both.” 

“Oh!” Lena exclaimed, “I nearly forgot!” She rummaged through her bag and pulled out a manila folder. “Kara has authorized me to act as a fiduciary on her behalf in this matter,” she said as she handed it to Alex. Kara slung an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders and nodded affirmatively. 

Alex looked cautiously at the two of them, then opened the folder as Kelly peered over her shoulder. “An invoice? What the hell is this?” She scanned the document further and read aloud, “Twenty-seven weeks of half an allowance, compounded at 15-year U.S. Treasury interest rates— Oh my god, Kara!” She burst out laughing and set the folder down. “How about we make dinner my treat and call it even.” 

“Kara, as your fiduciary, my advice is that the other party’s counteroffer is more than fair,” Lena stage-whispered. 

“In that case, offer accepted, and I _will_ be having another round of potstickers after all!” 

She and Alex shook on the deal, then she signaled impatiently for the waiter’s attention. The group broke into laughter, the warmth of their friendship invigorating Kara Zor-El Danvers more than Earth’s yellow sun ever could. 


End file.
